Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

BERNSTEIN, Elmer

(b 4 April 1922, NYC; d 18 August 2004) Film composer, arranger, conductor. He studied at Juilliard, worked as a concert pianist and arranged for AAF radio shows during WWII. In 1950 he moved to Hollywood and became one of the most prolific composers of film scores, including Sudden Fear '52, and a Frank Sinatra movie The Man With The Golden Arm '55, about drugs, a controversial subject then: the score was a breakthrough, and Bernstein's recording of the main theme made the USA top 20. Others included The Ten Commandments '56, Sweet Smell Of Success '57, The Magnificent Seven '60, Walk On The Wild Side '62, Love With The Proper Stranger '63, A Walk In The Spring Rain '70, Big Jake and See No Evil '71: over 200 film and TV credits altogether. 'Staccato's Theme' from the TV show Johnny Staccato made no. 4 in the UK pop chart '59-60. He said that he didn't know how he was going to write a score for a film about racism, To Kill A Mockingbird '63, until he realized that the events in the film were experienced through the eyes of a child: the brilliant solution was to have much of the score picked out one note at a time on the piano, like a child trying to play. He remained an independent in the Hollywood film factories, and the greatest freedom he had, he said, was the freedom to make his own mistakes. He married conventional big-tuned soundtracks to loopy comedies, such as Animal House '78 and Ghostbusters '84, then returned to assorted serious dramas: My Left Foot '89, The Age Of Innocence '93, Being John Malkovich '99. He was nominated for Oscars 14 times, the last in 2002 for his score for Far From Heaven, but only won once: for Thoroughly Modern Millie '67, one of that year's biggest moneymakers, starring Julie Andrews.

In an interview with Mojo in 2002, he worried that his jazzy score to Golden Arm 'opened the floodgates to the idea of scoring dramatic films with popular music. Sometimes it's appropriate, but a lot of times it isn't . . . Today, the end credits of any movie will list 14 pieces of unrelated music. That is unfortunate.' But as he also pointed out, 'The success of the Golden Arm score . . . was that the use of jazz was entirely appropriate.' Innovators should not blame themselves because their imitators are second rate.